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Mimi Kirchner’s Hand Sewn Felt Doll

The beautiful handmade dolls pictured above were created from a pattern developed for The Purl Bee by the incredibly talented, brilliant and generous Mimi Kirchner. When we first discovered Mimi’s blog, Doll, we were in absolute awe of her work and knew we must invite her to create a doll pattern for our readers. We were so pleased when she accepted our invitation and even more thrilled when she brought the dolls with her to New York City and we finally got to meet her. We loved Mimi just as much as we love her dolls!

Finished Measurements

Approximately 14-inches tall from heel to top of head.

Materials

You’ll need one piece of our Wolvitz 100% Wool Felt for each color used to make your doll. You’ll have enough felt left to make a second doll except for the dress (unless you piece the dress together from remaining scraps). Here are the colors we used for each doll:

Pattern Templates

Prepare Pattern Pieces

Pick which hair style you want.

Print out pattern and transfer pieces to matte side of freezer paper using a sunny window.

Cut out freezer paper pattern pieces.

Iron the pattern pieces, shiny side down, onto the felt with your iron at wool setting. After ironing, pin the pattern pieces to felt to hold the layers together. (The photo above shows all three hairstyles, you’ll only need to use one of them). Note that most of the pieces are cut from a double layer of felt, which you can see in the photo below.

Cut around pattern pieces. Save scraps for decorating the dress and hair later on.

Note: there are no seam allowances so cut carefully!

Mark all dots on felt with a water soluble marking pen.

Assemble Doll

When you make your doll, use embroidery thread that matches your felt. You will note in our photos that we’ve used a contrasting thread so that you can see it.

Arms

Overlap arm over hand at the dots. Attach hand to arm with backstitch across the wrist on stitch line. (For help with Backstitch, click here).

Fold arm, right side out, and continue up the arm with a whip stitch. Do not cut thread at the end, you will use it later. (For help with Whip Stitch, click here).

Begin stitching the hand from the top down toward the wrist, stuffing as you go to ensure a firm wrist.

Complete stitching to wrist.

Stuff arm using forceps to within 3/4-inch from the end of the arm.

Repeat for second arm.

Body

Attach head to torso by backstitching across the neck at the stitch line, do not cut thread, continue onto opposite side of torso.

Stitch around head and stuff, making sure neck is stiff.

Stitch down one side of torso starting at neck and ending at crotch on one side.

Stitch down other side of torso stopping at top of hip.

Stuff body and stitch closed.

Legs

Overlap boot over leg at dots.

Attach boot and leg by backstitching across ankle at the stitch line. Do not cut thread.

Picking up the same thread, repeat with other side of boot and leg. Stitch around both sides of boot stuffing as you go along to ensure firm ankle.

Stitch up front of leg and stop at top.

Stitch up back of leg to 1/2-inch past knee dots. Do not cut thread.

Stuff leg up to knee. Pinch leg so seams meet at center of leg. Using a new piece of thread stitch across knee and then back again using backstitch or running stitch.

Picking up thread where you left off, continue stitching up back of leg until 3/4-inches remains. Stuff leg and stitch closed.

Repeat for second leg.

Assemble body

Attach Arms

Mimi warns that attaching the arm is hard to explain, but easy to do!

To attach arms to body, fold felt 1/4-inch to the inside at top of each arm.

Pinch opening closed so arm seam is in the middle as pictured above.

Stitch across opening using whipstitch. Don’t cut thread.

Pinch top of arm into v-shape.

Poke needle and thread from arm through dots on both sides of torso and then back through other side of V on arm. Repeat several times until arms is securely fastened to torso.

Tie off under arm, poke needle back in and out of torso and snip end.

Repeat for other arm.

Attach Legs

Note: Mimi warns that you may think its nuts to use such a long piece of thread for this step, but we promise you will need it!

I love this pattern! But how do you secure the thread when stitching the dolls face? I only know how to secure a thread on the backside of a fabric, and since the doll is already assembled when I stitch I don’t know how to proceed. Thanks in advance!

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